List Price: $6.575 millionThe Property: Pointedly opaque to passersby, this three-story, 6,300-square-foot house opens up inside as a series of light-bathed rooms whose walls and ceilings, staircases and cabinetry appear to float past and through one another. Designed by the architect Perry Janke and completed in 1992, the house has at its center a 43-foot-high atrium, with steel staircases climbing its sides, assorted rooms overlooking it through glass or through wall cutouts, and a roof terrace at the top. Hung throughout is the sellers’ collection of art, including a sculpture of a woman walking a tightrope 30 feet above the living room.

The house’s exterior windows use a commercial-grade glass that from the outside appears to be covered with a dense screen but is transparent from the inside. “We wanted to see [Lincoln Park] without having the park see us…

New on the Market—A Steel and Glass Landmark on Chicago’s Lincoln Park

List Price: $6.575 millionThe Property: Pointedly opaque to passersby, this three-story, 6,300-square-foot house opens up inside as a series of light-bathed rooms whose walls and ceilings, staircases and cabinetry appear to float past and through one another. Designed by the architect Perry Janke and completed in 1992, the house has at its center a 43-foot-high atrium, with steel staircases climbing its sides, assorted rooms overlooking it through glass or through wall cutouts, and a roof terrace at the top. Hung throughout is the sellers’ collection of art, including a sculpture of a woman walking a tightrope 30 feet above the living room.

The house’s exterior windows use a commercial-grade glass that from the outside appears to be covered with a dense screen but is transparent from the inside. “We wanted to see [Lincoln Park] without having the park see us…

By Dennis Rodkin

Published Nov. 1, 2007

List Price: $6.575 millionThe Property: Pointedly opaque to passersby, this three-story, 6,300-square-foot house opens up inside as a series of light-bathed rooms whose walls and ceilings, staircases and cabinetry appear to float past and through one another. Designed by the architect Perry Janke and completed in 1992, the house has at its center a 43-foot-high atrium, with steel staircases climbing its sides, assorted rooms overlooking it through glass or through wall cutouts, and a roof terrace at the top. Hung throughout is the sellers’ collection of art, including a sculpture of a woman walking a tightrope 30 feet above the living room.

The house’s exterior windows use a commercial-grade glass that from the outside appears to be covered with a dense screen but is transparent from the inside. “We wanted to see [Lincoln Park] without having the park see us,” says Ruth Durchslag, who with her husband, Stephen, commissioned Janke to design the house. (Ruth is a psychologist and descendant of Sara Lee founder Nathan Cummings; Stephen is an attorney who heads the intellectual property group at Winston & Strawn.) In the 1980s, the Durchslags bought this then-vacant site from the owners of the landmark Wrigley mansion next door. As Ruth describes it, the couple’s goal was to build “a home and a showcase for art [that] was itself a piece of sculpture.” They used a light color palette throughout, including shades of gray and white in the minimalist kitchen.

Although the small front yard is exposed to park-users, the couple’s agent, Gayle Tepper, points out that the house’s hidden and gated 40-foot-long driveway could—because it is paved in granite blocks instead of asphalt—serve as a play area for kids. Having raised their kids in the house, the Durchslags and their art collection are moving to a Gold Coast apartment that Janke also designed.

Price Points: Originally listed at $6.95 million, the house is now priced at $6.575 million. Listing Agent: Gayle Tepper, Rubloff, (312) 368-5959; gtepper@rubloff.com